


Visions

by becca2793



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "come in and eat whatever you want make yourself at home here do you want a free car?" type, M/M, i love tattoos so this was so much fun, keith is a graffiti artist and lance is a tattoo artist, lance fanboys hardcore, lance loves them, pidge hates basic tattoos, shiro and allura are amazing hosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:57:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8275288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becca2793/pseuds/becca2793
Summary: "It’s funny, because as a tattoo artist he makes art that lasts pretty much forever – as far as the person who has it is concerned – but a street artist…their art lasts maybe a couple of days." Keith comes in for a tattoo; Lance immediately falls in love. With his art. His love for Keith comes later.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drosana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drosana/gifts).



> A fic for Drosana, who requested Keith as a graffiti artist. I was more than happy to oblige.

He wipes the excess ink off and leans back, surveying his work before bending down again, pressing the small, weighted machine a little harder against the client’s skin, following the marked line. She flinches, but he keeps his hand steady. He has enough practice – tattoos hurt, and people tend to squirm and wince like crazy while they’re getting them. The worst is in the ribs, when they’re gasping for breath from the pain rather than breathing normally. He can’t fault them _too_ much, though. He has enough tattoos himself to understand that, yes – they can be quite painful. It’s just about bucking up and biting your lip and sitting through it.

The client groans as he gets closer to her hip bone. He tries to be careful, easy, but unfortunately there are a dozen needles piercing this chick’s skin at very high speeds. It’s hard to soften the blow from that and still get the ink deep enough. “It’s gonna be okay,” her friend tells her, patting her hand. “It’s not a very big one. He looks like he’s almost done.”

“I am,” Lance insists, wiping excess ink off again and going back to work. There’s only a few more lines to connect, and no color involved. It’s just a contour of an open birdcage, anyway. His co-owner Pidge will probably drag her later on after she leaves, because they tend to do that when they see tattoos that are overly stereotypical. It’s not that they’re mean, really, just a little sarcastic and judgmental. They’re a great friend, really, and a great artist.

He connect the final line and then wipes everything down again, sterilizing it this time, and pats her thigh. “All done!” He says. “Go take a look in the mirror!”

“It looks awesome,” her friend tells her, and he finally gets a look at the poor girl’s red face. She has tears in her eyes from the pain, but she smiles as she slides off of the reclined chair and wobbles over to the huge, floor length mirror. Her grin grows when she gets a good look at it.

“I love it!” She exclaims, nodding. “It looks great!”

He shoots her a wink and hands her a piece of black plastic. “Tape this over it, and don’t submerge the tattoo in water for a week or so. Remember to put lotion on it twice a day, too.”

She nods and smiles brightly, and she’s hot, Lance supposes, but too young. Today is her eighteenth birthday. Five years is too much of an age difference for him – it’d be weird. And creepy. He may be flirtatious but he’s not a creep. Mostly.

She’s also his final customer for the night. It’s early, which is good, because he can go home and catch up on Netflix with some Cheetos.

He tugs on his coat, then his beanie, and grabs his bag, ready to go, when the door opens.

The guy looks pretty edgy, with dark hair (a mullet? weirdo…), a nose piercing, and an industrial in his left ear, but he’s also someone else’s problem to deal with because Lance has a hot date with himself tonight. If the guy didn’t make a reservation, that’s his issue.

But Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder and stops him before he gets past the front desk. He sighs deeply. “Come on, man. I wanna go home.”

“Pidge is busy, you know that.”

And Hunk can’t do it because he’s a piercer, yeah, yeah. He sighs again and looks at the guy as he walks up to them, glancing around the parlor. He guesses he can do something, if it’s simple. And also if he can get his number, because wow, okay – those eyes. They’re sharp, and fucking beautiful. “What can I do for you, Handsome?”

The guy lays his eyes on him, finally, and Lance is shocked to find that he’s not either totally disgusted or totally into him. He just looks a little confused. “I know I don’t have an appointment,” he starts. “But it should be quick. I already have the art I want – you can just transfer it in order to get the stencil.”

Okay, this guy means business. “Sure,” Lance says, wiggling his eyebrows and leaning forward. He holds out his hand. “Let me see what you got.”

He has a duffle bag over his arm, which is a little sketchy, but he just sets it on the ground, unzips it, and pulls out a sketchbook; it carries the sharp smell of aerosol, which means he’s definitely an artist, possibly a tagger. Lance really hopes he’s even remotely good. He always feels bad working off of shitty art. Though he guesses the term’s relative.

Mullet flips through his sketchbook before finally settling on a page. He rips it out and hands it over to Lance, who takes it with a sultry grin. The guy doesn’t look too perturbed by it, so Lance just looks down, a little disappointed at not being able to get a good reaction out of him, and then pauses.

It’s definitely not shitty. It’s also pretty simple, just like he said. It’s just the head of a lion, lined in red ink, but it’s beautiful. “Um, yeah man,” Lance says, shaking his head a little. “No big deal. Where do you want it?”

He pulls up the sleeve of his red jacket and shows off the pale skin of his inner forearm. He taps about halfway down from his elbow. “Right here.”

“Okay – how big?”

“As big as you can make it with it still looking good.”

A smirk crosses Lance’s face. “Sure, Cutie.”

“My name’s Keith,” Keith says, then, eyebrows coming together.

“Sure, Cutie.”

Keith just shakes his head. “How much?”

“Minimum is fine. Do you want it in black or in red like this?”

“In red.”

“No problem. Go sit in the third chair over there and I’ll get this all set for you.”

Keith nods and walks over to where Lance instructed, tossing his bag to the floor and pushing himself up onto the seat; then he shrugs out of his jacket and tosses that on top of it. Lance kind of wishes the tattoo was a back piece so he would take off his shirt, too, but no such luck.

Still, he’s getting a damn good view of those biceps. “Lance,” Hunk nearly whines. “Don’t be weird with your clients, okay?”

“Have you looked at him?”

“I have. For the same amount of time as you. Don’t be weird, please.”

He doesn’t promise a goddamn thing.

After he’s put the image on the transfer paper, he walks over to his station, where Keith is waiting patiently. “Hey, man. You have any ink already?”

Keith looks up at him and brushes his hair out of his face. “Yeah, just something small on the side of my calf.”

“Cool, cool,” he nods. “You should mostly know the drill then. Stay as still as possible and remember to breathe, because it’s probably gonna hurt.” The guy just shrugs. “Alright then.” He takes the transfer paper and presses it against the inside of Keith’s arm. “About here?”

“Yeah, that’s great.”

Lance peels the paper away, leaving the outline of the lion. “And this is an okay size?”

“For sure.”

“Cool,” he says, throwing the paper away and getting his red ink out. “This is gonna look pretty dope, dude. You drew it, I assume.”

Keith nods. “Yeah. I’m an artist.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have more tattoos then.”

The other man just shrugs again. “Starving artist.”

Lance wants to mention that small tattoos like this generally don’t cost any more than sixty, and Lance is only charging him forty, but he doesn’t. Everyone has their reasons for everything. “Alright, let’s get going, then.”

He holds Keith’s arm as still as possible and dips the machine in the ink before turning it on. Its buzz is more than familiar to him, and those beautiful eyes follow his movements as he situates his hand correctly and then starts the first line. Dude doesn’t even flinch. For someone with only one tattoo that’s pretty good. Once he’s done with the first line, he goes to the second, then the third. Usually he chats while he’s working, but Keith doesn’t seem to want to talk, and he feels overly focused anyway. Neither of them say an entire word until it’s finished, maybe fifteen minutes later; Lance wipes the tattoo down and then surveys it. It looks really good, he thinks, although the red ink is kind of lost in the red, irritated skin. Still, from what he can see it’s going to turn out looking amazing once all that redness has gone down in a day or two.

Keith looks down at it, and a smile flicks across his face, the first genuine one of the night. It looks pretty good on him, and Lance wonders if the hot date with himself could be turned into a hot date with Lion Boy.

“Hey, so-”

“Thanks, man, it looks great,” Keith interrupts, pushing himself off the chair. Lance backs up a little as he walks past him. “I pay up front?”

“Ah, yeah, but-!”

But Keith is already, kind of rudely, leaving. He seems like he’s maybe in a rush, but he never mentioned anything like that beforehand. Lance was taking his sweet ass time to make sure it came out correctly – didn’t Keith _realize_ he was being slow? He probably could have done it in ten minutes and still have it looking amazing if he really wanted to.

Which, now that he thinks about it, causing someone extra pain isn’t necessarily a nice thing to do, but Keith didn’t seem bothered in the least. So it’s fine.

He watches as Keith pays Hunk, resituates his duffle bag, and then walks right out the door. He was probably only in the parlor for a grand total of thirty minutes or so; people usually stay a little longer. They usually talk a little more. Especially when they’re self-described artists; those types of people generally love to talk about themselves. But Keith didn’t really say anything substantial to him at all, which kind of bothers him.

But it’s over, he figures, and he’s probably not going to see the guy again unless he comes back for another tattoo.

“Hunk,” Lance calls across the parlor, and his friend turns towards him. “You let me know if he comes back, you hear me?”

“Don’t be a creep, Lance!” Hunk calls back.

“I’m not! I just want to talk to him more!”

Hunk shakes his head, and Lance starts picking his things up again, tossing out the ink he’d been using and sterilizing his needles. Once he’s finished, he gets his stuff once more and leaves. Looks like it’s back to Netflix and Cheetos and himself tonight.

* * *

 He forgets about Keith. It doesn’t take long. He sees a lot of people most days, so one cute guy he was with for thirty minutes completely leaves his headspace after about two days. He’s focused on other things, anyway. Like the t-shirts they’re making, and getting the damn transfer machine working again. It likes to go out right when he needs it most.

But then…something reminds him of that night, of the smell of aerosol.

A red lion, huge and roaring and on the back side of the building of suites his parlor is in. It looks just like Keith’s art, like the stoic lion now on his arm, but instead vicious and prideful. It’s beautiful.

It’s also going to get taken down soon, because it’s actually on the back of a relatively decent restaurant, and while the people who work there are cool and have, in the past, brought food to them, the owner isn’t going to like spray paint marring his store. It’s a little sad, almost, but it’s the fate of taggers.

It’s funny, because as a tattoo artist he makes art that lasts pretty much forever – as far as the person who has it is concerned – but a street artist…their art lasts maybe a couple of days. He’s never understood why people would do this kind of thing. Low-grade criminals tagging a word or a name for recognition, maybe, but…something like this? Something at least four feet high and four feet wide? Something beautiful, something that took time, which means _risk_. In a city like this, graffiti artists are basically the victims of modern witch hunts. The community cracks down on stuff like this. Keith, if it was him that did this (and it probably was, has to be), could very well get arrested. That’s intense. All to mark a lion on the back of a building.

He loves it.

Maybe he can talk the owner into keeping it up.

* * *

 No such luck. When he comes back the next day, it’s gone.

* * *

 And then three days later it’s up again.

This time he takes a picture of it, because it’s going to get covered up again. It’s just a matter of time.

As he’s walking away, however, he notes something relatively small and black laying on the ground next to a trashcan. Normally he would walk on, ignoring it, but he steps forward and picks it up. It looks just like Keith’s sketchbook.

He takes it back inside and sits on top of his chair before starting to flip through it, page by page. It’s beautiful, it’s all beautiful, full of things he’s never seen before, imaginings that can only come from the mind of someone beyond talented and amazingly creative. Each one has a little signature somewhere on it, a tiny scratchy ‘Keith.’

What mostly excites him, however, is that this means Keith will probably be coming back for it soon. Possibly tonight. He has so many questions, but mostly he wants to see him work. He wants to know what it takes to create something gorgeous like that roaring lion.

So during his free time he goes outside and sits on a parking spot hump, knees drawn up to his body and sketchbook on the ground behind him.

He sits for a long, long time.

By the time he’s ready to get up and leave, figuring that Keith really isn’t coming tonight, he hears the rumble of a motorcycle pulling up. It’s late enough that it’s not anyone coming in for work at any of the buildings, so he perks up. And rightfully so. The bike stops a little ways away, and then the helmet comes off and Keith is there. In the flesh.

Lance has to physically stop himself from bouncing in place.

“You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Lance grins, tapping his fingers against his knee. “I’ve been waiting.”

Keith purses his lips and looks away. “How long?”

He pulls out his phone and looks at it. “About two hours, honestly. But I knew it would be tonight.” Okay, no he didn’t, but still.

“How?”

“Psychic.”

Now Keith smiles a little, smirks really, and looks back at him. “I actually wasn’t coming back for what you think.”

Lance grins and stands. “You weren’t coming back because you couldn’t stand to be away from me anymore?” He asks, stretching a little.

Keith shakes his head. “No. I just left something here the other night. I haven’t been able to find it in days, so I figured it had to be here, logically.”

“What, our budding romance?”

He rolls his eyes and pushes past Lance. “My sketchbook.” He looks around, behind the air conditioner, by the dumpster, under the cars belonging to the wait staff, who are still around even though the restaurant has been closed for two hours.

“You mean this one?” Lance asks, holding it up.

Keith spins around on his heel with wide, pretty eyes. “Yes. How long have you had it?”

“I found it earlier. I’ve been holding onto it for you.”

“Thanks,” he breathes out, relieved, and he walks towards Lance, who reaches out to hand it to its original owner – then he yanks it back quickly. “What? Give it to me!”

“Okay, but only on one condition.”

Keith crosses his arms. “What’s that?”

“Take me with you.”

“ _What_?”

“I want to see you work. Take me with you.”

“No,” the other man shakes his head, black hair fluffing against his cheeks. “No way. It’s too dangerous.”

“Aw, you worried about me?”

He scoffs. “You could get _arrested_ , Lance. Don’t you own a business? Can you really afford to have that on your record?”

“Bruh, I own a tattoo parlor. I don’t think anyone is gonna go ‘oh, we can’t go there, the owner stood next to a street artist and watched him make beautiful art.’”

“What about the people who lease you that room?”

Lance pauses. “You make a point, there, Mullet. But see here, I’ve been thinking about this for _days_. Ask my co-owners. Once I get something in my head, it don’t leave.”

Keith doesn’t even look like he’s going to begin to consider it, shaking his head and huffing out of his nose. But his words contradict that. “If I bring you with me, will you give me my sketchbook back and leave me alone?”

“For sure, for sure.”

“Fine.” He walks back over to his motorcycle and throws Lance the helmet before situating the satchel bag on it and making sure it’s properly attached. “Come on. Haven’t got all night.”

Lance looks down at the helmet and then jogs forward. “What about you?” He holds up the helmet in question, and Keith sighs and takes it from him only to shove it on his head.

“I’m fine.” He lifts one leg over the bike and gestures behind him with his head. “Get on.”

Lance fixes the helmet so that it’s not so uncomfortable and climbs on behind Keith, wiggling to get comfy and wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist. He doesn’t move Lance away and he appreciates this, because Keith smells pretty good, and he’s warm.

The bike starts, engine rumbling fairly loudly, and then they’re off. Lance left everyone at the parlor, sure, but he can apologize later. This has been on his mind for what feels like forever, and being this close to Keith and his art is like a dream.  He’s always been super interested in other people’s art, probably because he’s an artist himself, but there’s something else about Keith. About that lion. He wants to talk to him, to ask him more questions, but the engine and roaring wind is too loud. And Lance also has to focus on leaning correctly and holding on tight, because Keith is a rather dangerous driver. It’s exciting, exhilarating, but also he doesn’t want to fall off. 

They get deeper and deeper into the city, and Lance can honestly say he has no idea of where they’re going, because Keith is in a part of town he usually doesn’t go to. It’s much older, has a lot of run down, abandoned buildings, and this is probably prime real estate for graffiti. He never really thought on it too much before.

They slow down a little as they get to a not so nicely paved road, and then stop completely in an abandoned parking lot. There isn’t a lot of light here, so Lance isn’t sure of how Keith’s going to see what he’s working on, but he’ll find out. He lowers his arm and slides off of the bike before checking his pockets to make sure his phone and wallet didn’t fall out. He takes off the helmet as Keith gets off and unlocks the satchel bag.

Supplies, it looks like, but not many. He’s got about four different types of red spray paint, what looks like tiny stencils, a gigantic flashlight, a bandana, and packs of paint markers. He picks up the flashlight first and turns on it, shining it around the area, and Lance is a little shocked. He couldn’t see well before, but now he can. Concrete, everywhere, like they started building a garage here and gave up after one level. There’s a lot of tags for sure, and what looks like old cover-ups, nothing that looks like it could be Keith’s.

“What is this place?”

Keith walks around a little more, aiming the flashlight all over, presumably to find a good spot, and lands on a wide, circular piece of relatively empty space. “They call it the Concrete Jungle,” he says, voice low. He sets the flashlight on the ground so that it’s pointed at the spot he wants at an angle and then walks back to his bike and wraps the bandana over his nose and mouth, to keep from inhaling the fumes most likely, before grabbing the set of markers and walking back.

Lance steps up, watching, transfixed as Keith begins quickly sketching a shape out in the giant red marker and creating his template in near record time. Lance is afraid to blink – he doesn’t want to miss any of it. He also listens closely for cars, for anyone that could come by and catch them, but he’s mostly focused on the image that’s forming. He can’t quite tell what it is yet. It looks maybe like the beginnings of a space suit?

Whatever it is, Keith is wasting no time with his movements, and Lance has seen a lot of art but this feels like a _performance_. Feels real, feels raw and whole and he loves it. He thought he was interested before, but now he feels like he could grow borderline obsessed with the idea. It’s not just about risk, it’s about necessity, because it has to be that, right? No one would do this just because they want to, because it’s some passing fad. Not like this. This is when you need people to see your art, for whatever reason. He used to think it was political, but nothing Lance saw in Keith’s sketchbook looked political.

And this spaceman doesn’t look like it either. Lance can see that’s what it is now, in the course of maybe three of four minutes. He has a weapon, too, some kind of sword. Keith backs away for a second to look at it, nods, and then, surprisingly, says something to Lance. “Hey, go get me my cans.”

Lance nods quickly, more than happy to be of some use. “Yeah, man, totally. Yes.” He runs over to where the four cans are and picks them all up before running back to Keith. “Which one do you want first?”

Keith doesn’t really need to think about it. Or look at him apparently. “R43,” he says, holding out his hand. Lance looks at the tops of the cans and then hands him the one he asked for, the darkest red. “Step back.”

He does as he’s told, but he still tries to stay as close as he can. Keith tightens the knot in the bandana before shaking the can and starting on the first line.

Keith’s movements aren’t slow and careful like Lance’s; they’re quick, dangerous, enough to give you whiplash, and somehow still extremely fucking precise. He knows when to start the spray, when to stop, how fast to go, how hard to press down – the paint doesn’t run, or bleed, and he’s not even using the stencils he brought with him. It’s amazing, mesmerizing. The sharp scent of that acrid aerosol is quickly permeating the cold night air, but he doesn’t mind it at all. It adds to all of it, he thinks.

Once Keith has laid down the groundwork, the darkest color, he holds it out to Lance, who takes it and caps it once more. “R32,” Keith tells him, and Lance quickly finds it and gives it to him. “Thanks.”

Lance murmurs a response, already too hyped up to see him bring the painting to life in this next step. He watches as Keith starts with the new layer, still quick and precise, but maybe a little more careful. This takes him maybe a full two minutes before he’s handing the can back and asking for the next one. This one takes even less time. The final color takes maybe a minute, if that, as he just adds highlights and brighter tones.

When he’s done he steps back and surveys it, but Lance can’t bring himself to give Keith any praise. He’s totally speechless. Well, not totally. “Holy shit, man,” he whispers, and Keith looks over at him.

“What?”

He swallows, licks his lips. “Um, it’s fucking amazing. I – I can’t even express how fucking cool that is.”

Keith pulls down the bandana and grins at him. “You like it?”

“I fucking love it. Can I take a picture of it?”

For a second the only response he gets is slow blinking. “Yeah, sure. Go for it.” Keith steps away in order to grab the flashlight and give the image even better light while Lance fishes his phone out of his back pocket and swipes up to take a picture. He snaps about three before he’s satisfied and shoves it away again.

“Oh my god, you’ve got to teach me how to do that.”

“What? _No_. Listen, I brought you with me, so give me my sketchbook back.”

“Please, man, please.” He folds his hands together and runs up to Keith. “I need to learn from a pro. I can be a good little student, I promise. You can even punish me if I’m bad,” he winks.

Keith groans. “Why are you like this?”

“Because,” he offers in response. “Come on. Do you want me to pay you? I will fucking _pay_ you.”

“I don’t need your money,” Keith hisses back. Then he sighs. “Tell you what. You give me a tattoo of that,” he points to the new art piece on the concrete wall. “And I’ll teach you how to make it. But just once! This isn’t going to be some six week art class.”

“Okay,” Lance nods, quickly. “Yeah, okay, _totally_. Ah! I’m so happy!” He gives Keith a sloppy kiss on the cheek and twirls around. “That was so cool, so _cool_.” He notices Keith wipe his cheek off vigorously, but it doesn’t deter him.

“Just…help me pick this stuff up.”

Lance nods and picks up the markers and two of the paint cans, while Keith grabs the other two and the flashlight. After they load the stuff in the satchel Keith climbs on and patiently waits for Lance to do the same. He, almost surprisingly, allows Lance to wrap his arms around his middle again; maybe Keith didn’t hate the cheek kiss as much as he pretended to.

They get away quickly, and Keith drives even faster on the way back to the parlor than he had from it. Lance closes his eyes and basically glues himself to Keith’s back – he radiates warmth like a space heater, and it’s nice because the air whipping against them is frigid. He decides he doesn’t like motorcycles on winter nights.

When they get back, Keith doesn’t even turn the bike off. He stays seated while Lance climbs off and hands him the helmet. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Keith asks, and he doesn’t sound threatening so much as pleading. “Not a soul. Not even your friends.”

Oh, that’s a tall order for Lance, who can’t keep his mouth shut for shit. But he can do his damndest. “Not an issue. No one will hear a peep.”

“Good. I’ll be coming around within a couple days for the tattoo. See you then, Lance.” He fits the helmet on his own head, then, and shoots off into the night.

Lance has got it bad already – for both the art and the artist. He’ll probably be up all night thinking about this.

When he gets back inside, Hunk and Pidge interrogate him hardcore. He just lies through his teeth. He’s keeping Keith’s secret no matter what.

* * *

 True to his word, Keith returns fairly soon. Lance definitely didn’t forget him this time, there’s no way he could, and as the man steps into the store, unwrapping his scarf, Lance swoons a little. He looks so good with that flush on his cheeks from the cold outside air, and his dumb, cute mullet all disheveled.

“You crush like a twelve year old girl,” Pidge says from next to him, wiping off their tools. He looks down at them.

“So maybe I do, what’s your point?”

Pidge just shrugs and Lance bounds up to the front desk, when Keith is waiting. “Sup, dude?” He leans his chin on his palm to force nonchalance. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, nodding, and he watches as Lance bends down beneath the counter and grabs a sheet of paper and a mechanical pencil.

“Here, look it over and tell me what you think.”

Lance thinks it’s pretty good, honestly – he used the image on his phone for reference, so he knows it’s true to the original. Still, he wants to make sure it’s up to Keith’s expectations, so the drawing he did of the killer astronaut is in his pretty, pale hands now.

Keith looks stunned into silence, honestly, his eyes just roving down the paper, taking in every detail. He holds the pencil in his other hand, but it doesn’t move. “This is…really good, Lance. This probably looks better than the actual piece.”

“What?” Lance guffaws. “I mean, yes, I’m amazing, but-”

“I mean it,” Keith says, setting the paper back on the counter. “It doesn’t have to be edited. I want it like that.”

Lance blinks at him for a few seconds, and then grins. “Yeah, okay. Got you covered. Go sit in my chair. You remember which one?”

Keith nods. “Yeah.”

Lance notices he doesn’t have his big duffle bag with him this time, but a much smaller satchel. He sits in much the same way he did the first time, by pushing himself onto the chair and then shrugging out of his jacket. Ugh, those arms. He must, like, work out or something. There’s no way he doesn’t. He bets Keith has abs, too. Like, really nice ones.

He shakes the thoughts away and goes over to his station.

“Red again?”

Keith looks up at him. “No,” he shakes his head. “Black is fine.”

“Sure,” Lance says, a little surprised. Red just kind of seemed like Keith’s thing, so it’s weird to hear that he wants black. “Where at?”

For a second or two, Keith watches him; then he pulls his shirt off, stretching to get it above his head and then tossing it on top of his coat.

Lance was right – so right. He has abs, and they’re beautiful. All of Keith is beautiful, honestly. “On my left side,” Keith tells him, raising his arm. Lance tries not to watch the pull of muscles too closely, staying as focused as he can. “And about this big.” His finger starts near his ribs and goes down close to his hip. It drags, really, and Keith has got to be doing this on purpose. Lance grits his teeth and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little gruff. He clears his throat. “No problem. I’ll go get this ready for you.”

He walks past Keith towards their new transferring machine and sneers at Pidge as he passes them up. They’re snickering up a storm, covering their mouth with their hand and Lance’s expression only makes them laugh more. “I hate you,” Lance whispers to them, and they give him a thumbs up. Does he need to be tested in this way?

Once he has the image transferred at about the right size he goes back to Keith, who’s already lying on his side. Lance swallows as he walks up and around him. “Lift up,” Lance says, nudging Keith’s arm, and he does, putting it above his head. Idly, he plays with the long strands of his own hair. Lance does not watch. Tattooing needs focusing. This is going to be on Keith’s body forever. It needs to look perfect. No fuck ups.

He presses the paper against Keith’s skin and then pulls it back, the astronaut/space man/warrior starkly purple against his skin. He prepares the ink after this, pouring the black into a little cup and then dipping the machine in it. “You ready, man? This is gonna hurt more than your lion.”

“I’ll be fine,” Keith returns, and Lance frowns. It’s going to hurt. Lance knows it is. This close to his ribs it’ll be excruciating. He wipes down the area he’s starting with and then turns on the machine. “I’m sure you’ll be gentle,” he jokes, and Lance bites his bottom lip before making a humming noise of agreement and pressing the machine down. Keith _does_ flinch this time, but not badly, and he doesn’t take those deep gulping breaths people tend to. He breathes normally, if not maybe a little quickly, and stays extremely still as the machine moves down and away from his ribs, dipping down by his waist, then by his hip. Lance knows it hurts here, too, but not nearly as much as it did further up.

Keith really takes it like a champ, though. He doesn’t bitch at least, like a lot of people do. Silence usually comes from accepting the fact that it’s going to hurt and there’s nothing complaining will do to stop that. Maybe talking might help, though.

“How it been, man?” He asks.

Keith grunts, probably because of a particularly painful spot, and murmurs, “Alright. Just work.”

“I feel you,” Lance nods, finishing up another line. He wipes at the ink and then pauses for a moment to give Keith a breather. This one is gonna take a good while longer than his first one. “What do you do?”

“I’m a police officer,” he deadpans, and Lance just blinks at him. “That was a joke,” he says after a moment. He shakes his head. “Never mind. I mostly do commissions. I’m an artist, remember?”

“Oh, no, I totally forgot,” Lance jokes back. “What kind of commissions?”

“Paintings. Acrylic, mostly. Style’s a little different, though.”

“Yeah, I imagine it would be awkward if someone recognized your art on either side,” Lance laughs. “You do gallery work?”

Keith shrugs. “I have. I don’t really anymore.”

He doesn’t ask him why. “Alright, I’m starting again,” Lance warns, and then starts on the line for his sword. “How much would it cost for me to get you to paint a giant dick for me to put above my mantle?”

“I’d do that for free,” Keith says back, breath a little short, and Lance laughs, keeping his hand still while he grins wildly.

“Good to know. I’m thinking I want a series, you know?”

“Obviously.” They quiet a little bit after that, mostly out of a curtesy to Keith and his most likely intense pain. About fifteen minutes later they take another break.

Keith just grimaces and sits up, stretching his legs a little and then lying back down. Lance gives him another minute or so before they start up again.

By the time it’s finished, the skin of his side is totally irritated, an angry red. He feels bad, so he wipes it down with a wet napkin, to soothe the burn, the pain, and Keith sighs out. “Go check it out, man.” He gestures to the mirror and Keith slowly sits up and makes his way over there. He looks at it for a minute and then he grins.

“It’s good,” he says, nodding. “I like it.”

“I’m glad,” Lance nods, beaming, and he really is. For it to be up to par with Keith’s standards, he must genuinely like it.

After Keith has paid, at an admittedly somewhat discounted price, they step outside together. “When are you free?” Keith asks, grabbing his red helmet and putting it on. He flips the visor up.

“Wednesday night is the next time, I think.”

“Be out here Wednesday night at seven.” He says, and then he lifts one leg over the bike, starts it, and drives off.

Keith is fucking cool. It’s unfair how cool he is. In another universe he might be jealous, but right now it’s just making him swoon.

* * *

 Wednesday comes, and he’s jittery all the way up until seven o’clock. Then he’s practically screaming in his mind, pacing circles around the parking lot, waiting. Keith is a little late, but not by much, only around five minutes, and then the semi-familiar sound of his motorcycle is pulling up. He tries to look as cool and nonchalant as possible, and leans against the building as Keith steadies his bike with one leg against the ground.

“Follow me,” Keith says, engine still grumbling. Lance nods and quickly scurries into his Camry, starts it, and carefully follows Keith as he takes Lance through an intricate series of turns and movements. It takes a while, about twenty minutes, but finally Keith is pulling into a driveway of a fairly unassuming house. It’s not overly large, and it’s not overly small, but it looks quite artistic. There’s a cute pinwheel spinning in the breeze by the front door.

He parks behind Keith and turns off the car before climbing out and pocketing his keys. Before he can say anything, Keith walks right up to him. “Do not speak about the other night. My brother and his girlfriend don’t know, alright? It’s between you and me.”

Lance kind of likes that they have something so secret and intimate for just the two of them. Makes him feel kind of special. “Yeah, no problem. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good,” Keith nods, and he fits his helmet under his arm as he walks towards the front door. “They’ll probably stop you and offer you every item of food we have in the house, so –”

“Good, I’m starving,” he says, cheerily, and Keith sighs heavily. He unlocks the front door and steps inside.

“I’m home,” he calls, and then shuts the door behind Lance. It smells really good in here, but he can’t tell why, or what it is that smells that way.

“Oh,” comes a female voice. “Keith, you’re home early.” A woman – a gorgeous fucking woman with white-blonde hair and blue eyes – pokes her head out from behind a corner. “And you brought someone home! I wish you had told us!”

“He’s a friend,” Keith puts in, maybe a little too quickly. “Just a friend.”

The woman does not look convinced. “Uh huh. Well, I’m Allura. His brother’s _friend_.”

“Allura,” he hisses, and then an unbelievably gorgeous man pops up too, walking around Allura and into the foyer. He’s a little less conventionally beautiful due to the shock of white hair and scar across his nose, but somehow it all adds to his beauty. Lance would go into cardiac arrest if he had to live with all three of these people.

“Keith, your house is full of aliens. They’re too pretty to be real people,” he whispers, and Keith swats at him.

“Shut up. Hey, Shiro.”

“Hey. Who’s this?”

“I’m Lance!” He says, haughty, pointing a thumb at himself. “I’m ‘just a friend.’” He puts in air quotes, and Keith groans violently, putting his head in his hands. Shiro and Allura laugh, and then Allura pets down the skirt of her dress and gestures to whatever room they came from.

“We were making chicken marsala, if you’d like some? It’s Keith’s favorite. We were going to surprise him, but he doesn’t know how to text us and tell us when he’s going to be home, apparently.”

“I’m not sixteen anymore, _Mom_ ,” Keith tells her, sounding a little like he’s sixteen. “We’ll eat later. We’re going into the garage.”

“Don’t get paint on the walls this time, okay?” Allura calls as Keith grabs Lance by the hand and drags him down the hallway. They take a left, then another left, and then go through what appears to be the laundry room before finally entering the garage. It smells strongly of paint, almost to a sickening degree, but Keith just walks forward and lifts up the large door to outside, airing it out.

It’s a quiet night, so the music that Keith puts on bleeds into the air easily, coating the garage in sound. He goes to the corner, then, and starts grabbing large pieces of what looks like Bristol board and dragging them over to where Lance is standing. They fall to the ground, and then Keith goes back and grabs a huge cardboard box and carts it over to Lance as well. He unfolds the top, revealing what looks to be about twenty or thirty cans of spray paint, and then gestures to them. “Pick one.”

He hums and hovers his hand over the many choices, finally settling on a pretty shade of blue; he slides it out and shakes it. “I’ve never worked with this before.”

“It’s unique,” Keith says off-handedly, picking out a can of black. “Hard to control.”

“Harder than watercolor?”

“It can be.” He sets the can down on a table to their right, and then grabs two masks, then hands one to Lance. “Here. Unless you like to huff paint in your spare time.”

“Oh, no – gave it up years ago.”

Keith laughs, genuinely laughs, and shakes his head. Lance quite enjoys this expression. Keith is gorgeous when he smiles. “Good. It’s a nasty habit.” He fits the mask over his face, and Lance does the same.

“It’s not hardcore when you care about your health, you know,” Lance jokes, shaking his can of spray paint. Keith uncaps his and sprays it at him in response – it doesn’t hit him, thankfully.

“It’s hardcore not passing out from the fumes.”

“You got me there.”

Keith turns to the large Bristol board, then, and starts spraying it down, coating the entire thing in paint until it’s completely black. “I was thinking the astronaut was a little too advanced, so we’ll start with something more basic.”

Lance ponders this for a moment. “By basic you mean those space portraits, don’t you? You mean pumpkin spice latte basic, not technique basic.”

“Both,” Keith laughs again. “I want you to spray that blue in any spot on the board.”

“Big enough for a planet, right?”

“Yeah, big enough for a planet,” he says, crossing his arms, smirking. “Go ahead.” He doesn’t even attempt to draw a circle, because he knows where this is going. When it was popular a few years ago he had seen a couple videos. “Awesome. Now grab that bucket from behind you and place it over it.” Lance does as he’s told, still reeling a little bit from the smirk. Keith is too goddamn attractive. He must _know_ that, right? But he just sprays the black around the bucket again, getting rid of the excess blue. “Grab a gray next and start a moon.”

For a while they do this, beefing up the portrait step by step, flicking white paint for stars and creating space dust and giving the planets details. By the time it’s finally finished, Lance totally understands the need for masks. It smells like a paint store after an earthquake in the garage.

Keith removes the buckets in the end, and then sprays it all down with a glossy coat to hold it in, and they step back to revel in their creation.

It looks good, honestly. Better than Lance had expected, for some reason. He always assumed it was something that looked easy but wasn’t, but with Keith instructing, it looks pretty much professional. Like something one of those artists on the streets would make and people would record and clap for.

“I think we should go professional as a duo,” Lance says, taking off his mask. He wrinkles his nose at the scent in the air.

“Do you now?” Keith asks, nudging the board out of the way. “You remember, don’t you? One time thing.”

“Oh come on,” Lance sighs, sagging. “We’ve been having fun. We bonded!”

Keith watches him for a while. “I’ll think about it. Let’s go eat, and then you can back to whatever you would normally do right now.”

“On a Wednesday? Usually I’d be at home stuffing my face and playing video games.”

He gets a smile for that. “Sounds productive,” Keith says as he wipes his hands off on a rag and then tosses it to Lance. Afterwards, they walk back inside. The food is delicious.

* * *

 After that he doesn’t see Keith for a while. He’s not going to drive by his house or anything, that’s really weird, and he doesn’t have his phone number. The only things he really has are memories, and that astronaut. It’s still there, he’s checked three times, and it’s still beautiful and mesmerizing, especially in daylight. One time he just sat in front of it for about half an hour, pondering on it, wondering what it means. He could never figure it out. It’s an enigma, like Keith himself.

When Keith does finally show again, about a week later, it’s almost sheepishly. Lance has never seen the expression on him, and he catalogues it and watches him like he watched the painting, full of awe and wonder.

He likes Keith, he realizes. Not just his art, but him. And his feelings towards both are probably amplified by each other (his art is more beautiful because it’s Keith, and Keith is more beautiful because of his passion, his art) but at this point it doesn’t matter. The two are one in the same in his mind. There isn’t one without the other.

It’s a Tuesday night, so it’s slow. Pidge isn’t here, but Hunk is, piercing someone’s lip in the back, and Lance is managing the front because he doesn’t have an appointment for another hour. He’s been playing with the idea of going and picking up something to eat, but he decided to wait until Hunk’s done.

So he’s just leaning against the counter, lazily glancing at the fish tank in the corner and the little clownfish Felicia swimming around, when the door swings open and Keith is there, in person and not just his mind. He’s a little flushed, a little embarrassed, and he walks right up to the counter without looking Lance in the eye even once.

“Hey,” Lance says, because he’s a little stunned and that’s all he can manage. “Um, hi.”

“Hey,” Keith mumbles.

“What’s up, dude? What’s wrong?”

Keith looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “I thought about it,” he says. “I thought about it and…okay. I’ll teach you.”

“Took you a while,” Lance jokes, and Keith looks a little apologetic. Which is weird.

“It was a lot to decide. It’s a big deal for me.”

Lance never considered this, that Keith might have seen his art as only for him, as something personal, and maybe that’s why he’s been fighting Lance on it the whole time. It makes sense, maybe – he’s met artists like that, who are very exclusive about their art. “Oh, well,” he says after a moment, unsure of whether it’s appropriate to be cocky or not. Judging from Keith’s expression, he thinks not. “Thanks, then.”

Keith digs into his pocket and then slams his hand down on the counter. Lance is a little shocked by this, jolting, but then Keith’s hand slips away and a tiny piece of paper is left. It has a phone number on it. “Call me when you’re not busy.” He says, and then he sulks out of the building.

It was a weird exchange for the two of them, but he did finally get Keith’s number, so he counts it as an accomplishment.

* * *

 “Oh my god, Lance, just text him already or whatever.”

He’s been staring at his phone for a while, he will admit. For just about a full day. “But I don’t know how soon I can without seeming overly clingy or desperate.”

“He’s not your fucking boyfriend,” Pidge groans. “He _told_ you to call him. Just send him a greeting or something. Stop moping around the parlor. It’s bad for business, especially when I have to tell a customer you’re all worked up over sending a text to some dude you have a crush on.”

“It’s not my fault,” he grumbles.

Pidge rolls their eyes. “Just text him, Lance. Good lord.”

He bites his bottom lip and brings up a message, then types out something easy and generic. He’s ready to send it when he thinks maybe it’s a little too formal, so he erases it and starts over. About three or four times. Pidge finally just snatches the phone out of his hands and types something for him, and they’re so quick Lance doesn’t even have the time to snatch it back.

It’s already sent, so there’s nothing he can do about it, and it’s not too bad, he supposes. Casual, but not too casual. He shoves the phone in his pocket, determined to leave it there until he hears the tone that signifies a response.

This lasts for maybe a full minute before he takes it out to make sure his ringer is on, then to make sure he didn’t get any texts and wasn’t alerted, and then he surfs Facebook for a minute or two, to keep his mind off of it. It doesn’t work.

After about an hour, he gives up. Keith is either busy or changed his mind, and even though Lance could very well stay up half the night wondering how he fucked up already, he decides to put it to the side.

This is when he gets a response.

 _Hey_  is all it says. That’s it. He waited an hour, and then he gets one word.

_what’s up?_

_Nothing really._

_cool, cool. yeah, me neither. just sketching something at work_

_Oh? You should send me a picture._

Oh, that signifies some kind of interest, at least. Even if it is just about art. He snaps a picture and texts it over to Keith.

_It looks good. Is it…a robotic lion?_

_it’s a lion space ship. a companion piece for your red lion_

_Companion piece, huh? I like it._

_thanks, man._ _soooooo when are you free?_

_Pretty much always unless I’m working on a commission for someone._

_we should go get food or something_

It takes a little longer for a response to come through, and he’s biting his thumb nail the entire time.

_Like a date?_

Okay, that’s kind of blunt. He was going for subtlety for Keith’s sake. Usually he’s not delicate about this kind of thing at all, but he figured Keith would appreciate it.

_uh, yeah, sure, if you’re cool with it_

It takes a while again. Longer, this time.

_I thought you just liked my art._

_i like both_

_…Okay. Dinner is fine, I guess. Tomorrow?_

“Pidge, do I have any appointments tomorrow night?!” He calls across the room. Thankfully there’s no one else in here right now.

“Yes,” they scream back. “At eight!”

“Can you do it?”

“What? No!”

“But I have a date!”

They sigh, deeply. “Fine. But you have to call them and explain to them why I’m doing it instead of you.”

“I will!”

They wave him off. “Congrats or whatever,” they say much lower, but Lance still catches it.

_k, yeah, tomorrow is good. swing by around eight?_

_Sure. See you then._

_see you then ;)_

His heart slams against his ribs about a million miles a minute, and the grin stretched across his face is so wide it hurts. Today is a good day.

* * *

 The date goes well, he supposes. Keith seems a little closed off at first, more than when they did the space portrait together, but he opens up by dessert. His smile is gorgeous, Lance thinks, and when they walk outside together he grabs his hand and isn’t totally rejected. It’s nice.

Then the nicer part comes. “I was thinking…” Keith starts, looking away.

“About…?”

“Do you want to see the other things I’ve done?”

Lance blinks for a few minutes. “You mean like…things around the city?” Keith nods slowly. “Yeah! Yeah, I’d love to!” He nods excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How many do you have?”

“A couple…”

“I figured you just had one for each tattoo. That seemed to be a theme.”

He shakes his head. “No, those were just my favorites. And…” he trails off. “I like your work.” Lance gives him a confused look, so he goes on. “I saw it online. The linework was beautiful – that’s why I came in the first time. I hadn’t found anyone I really liked before then.”

He came in specifically for Lance, then. He already knew who Lance was. This makes him feel a little giddy for some reason. “That’s awesome, man.” He lightly punches him in the shoulder. “You really know how to make a dude blush.” He’s not blushing, not really, not enough to be seen in the darkness, but he really does appreciate the sentiment. More than he probably would coming from anyone else.

“Right well,” Keith ruffles his hair in what seems to be discomfiture. “Climb on behind me. I’ll drive us there.”

Keith slides onto the bike and then hands Lance the helmet, which he slips on before getting on behind his date; he wraps his arms around Keith’s middle and rests his chin on his shoulder. It’s comfortable to be so close to him, to feel his warmth, smell his scent. Keith is just comfortable in general, somehow.

The drive to the first one doesn’t take long. “The second one I ever did,” Keith explains as he climbs off of the bike and turns the flashlight on his phone on. He shines it on the building in front of them, and Lance steps forward, speechless. It’s a little different from the two others Lance has seen, more fluid, like a painting rather than anything else. “I’m surprised they still haven’t covered it up, but I guess this neighborhood isn’t too worried about it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Lance laughs, shaking his head. “It looks fucking amazing. I’m totally in love with it.” It’s got a lot of bright colors, seems happy, almost. “Is there a story?”

Keith is quiet for a moment. “Yeah, sort of. I had just turned seventeen when I did that one and-”

“Wait, how old are you now?”

“Twenty-one.”

“This has been up for _four_ years?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m so surprised.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, my birthday party had been earlier that day, and it was kind of the first real party I’d had in a really long time. A bunch of family was there and stuff. My parents got me a huge paint set. It was nice.”

“First real party?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, and that’s all he says. Okay then. Lance won’t press any further.

“Well, it’s great. I’m glad they haven’t covered it up.”

“I am too, honestly,” he hears. “I’m glad you got to see it.”

Lance doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just looks at the work a little longer, taking in every little detail, and then he turns back to the bike. “Alright, on to the next one!”

Keith laughs lightly. “Okay, let’s go.”

The next one they go to is a little bit further away. It looks a lot more like his recent work, in a startling, deep red. It’s a beautiful woman with her eyes closed, but it’s geometrical in a sense, with a lot of straight lines and distinctive shapes. “The story behind this one?”

“I saw her while I was listening to a song. I don’t know how to explain it –”

“No, I get it,” Lance grins, looking her over. “She’s gorgeous. I’m jealous that you got to see her and I didn’t.”

Keith pushes him. “It’s not like that. This song just…it sounded like her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Vanna.”

“Like Vanna White?”

“Oh my god,” Keith murmurs. “No, not like Vanna White.”

Lance laughs and steps forward, running his fingers along the lines of her face, across her hair, thumbs brushing over her eyelashes. “I’m a little bit in love with her. Is that weird?”

“No,” Keith tells him. “If you listened to the song you would love her even more.”

“You’ll have to let me listen to it.”

“No way,” he says, petulant. “I don’t _want_ you to fall in love with her more.”

“Want me to fall in love with you instead?” He says jokingly, before he can stop himself.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Keith scoffs, but he doesn’t sound convincing. “You don’t even know me.”

“Not yet,” Lance agrees.

The third piece they go to is red as well. “You like space, don’t you?” Lance asks with a grin, staring at the space ship.

“What makes you think that?” Keith returns, sarcastic.

The fourth one they go to is, apparently, the last that Keith believes is still up, and it is. It’s also something Lance thinks he could stare at for literally hours. It’s a young boy, probably around the age of ten, with a blue bandana over his nose and mouth. It looks sort of like the one Keith wore the night he painted the astronaut, looks sort of like Keith in general. “Self-portrait?”

Keith is quiet for a while. “Kind of. I didn’t go in with the intention, it just kind of happened.”

“I feel you,” Lance nods, not taking his eyes off of it. “When was it done?”

“Last year some time,” Keith tells him, and Lance presses his fingers against this one as well. It’s more realistic than any of the others, with shading and highlights. Hyper-realistic, almost. He bets if Keith had painted this on a canvas with his acrylics he could confuse someone into thinking it’s a photograph.

“You’re fucking talented,” Lance says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe this. It’s amazing. I need a picture.”

“Sure,” Keith says, and Lance pulls his phone out before taking a picture of it. He shoves it back in his pocket after and then leans his arm on Keith’s shoulder and continues to stare at it.

“I wish you had a physical copy of this I could like…buy or something. I love it.”

“I could make you one, I guess,” he says, lowly. “If you wanted.”

Lance blinks down at him. “Yeah,” he returns. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

Keith looks back up at him for a moment, and they lock eyes, but then Keith shuffles away. Lance backs off and then they go back to the motorcycle. “Okay,” he says after they climb on, but before he starts it. “I have one more place to show you.”

“I thought that was your last piece?”

“It is. I want to show you your first.”

Lance is quiet for a moment. “You serious?” He asks once he finds his voice, quickly growing excited. “You mean it?”

“Yeah,” Keith nods. “I have some stuff in my bag. I thought you could do something simple in the Concrete Jungle. Near mine.”

“Yes. Fuck yes. Let’s go. Let’s do this, man.”

He starts the bike then and shoots off, making Lance tighten his arms around him. He buries his face in the back of Keith’s neck as best he can, laughing, exhilarated. He feels the rumble of the bike and the rumble of Keith’s laugh, and he’s totally, totally gone over all of this. He couldn’t give it up for anything.

They show up at the Concrete Jungle fairly quickly, and Lance bounds off. Keith undoes the satchel on his bike and takes out his large flashlight and a couple of cans of spray paint, as well as that bandana. “Put it on,” he says, and Lance laughs as he does.

“I feel hardcore. Time to not pass out from fumes.”

Keith rolls his eyes, and Lance can barely see it in the dim light, but he still catches the action. He thrusts a can of blue spray paint at him, the same one Lance chose at his house, and then pushes him towards the wall. “Paint whatever you want.”

Spaceman is still there, and there’s some space to his left so Lance chooses this. He doesn’t have the markers for an outline, but he thinks that’s fine. He’s done drawings in ink without having a sketch down before, so this shouldn’t be too bad.

He starts at the top with quick, streaky marks, mimicking what he saw Keith do before. He makes the general shape before going in and defining it, rounding some of the image and connecting lines, making it looks like a somewhat complete image rather than a quick sketch, and Keith stays quiet the entire time. It’s a little unnerving, but Lance is ultimately grateful. He doesn’t want to be too distracted.

When he thinks it’s good enough, he sighs and steps back, lowering the bandana from his nose. He looks over at Keith, who’s still quiet, just watching, and when he notices Lance watching him, he smiles. “You’re a dork,” he says.

“You don’t like my space babe? I thought she went with your space man.”

“No, no, I like it,” he laughs. “She actually looks really good. I like her pointy ears.”

“Yeah, I thought about having her blowing him, but I decided against it.”

“Thanks,” Keith says dryly, but then he laughs again. “Well, I think they go good together. They can traverse the galaxy and kick alien ass.”

Lance is about to respond, to say something hilarious and witty, when another light shines on them. “Fuck,” he murmurs, and Keith looks over at him. Immediately police lights are flashing and they’re being yelled at, and they lock hands without a word.

Then they run. They run faster than Lance thought they could, pushed on by adrenaline and fear, but he’s laughing for some reason. Keith is, too, heaving heavy breaths. “Come on,” he says. “This way.” He tugs Lance to their left and he goes, running, his long legs carrying him quickly, and Keith isn’t even struggling to keep up with his pace one bit. There’s still yelling, still lights, but they just keep going, holding hands and grinning and quickly diving behind a building that has a very small alleyway behind it.

It’s a dead end, and Lance is about to start freaking out a little, but then Keith points to a fire escape. He jumps up, grabs the ladder to it, and then climbs up and gestures for Lance to do the same.

They run up the escape and Keith manages to find a broken window that he carefully pushes his hand through and unlocks from the other side. The room looks to be abandoned, and Lance wonders briefly what this building used to be, but he puts it aside and keeps his laugher low as they creep through. Keith finally stops after they reach the third room away, huffing in laughter and falling to the ground. Lance plops down next to him, so close that their shoulder touch.

“I’m gonna have to report my bike stolen, I guess,” he says, breathless.

“Hmmm?”

“Well, it’s in my name,” he explains. “They’ll link it to me. I’ll need an alibi, too. Think your friends can provide?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Lance laughs. “We were at the parlor all night long. I was giving you a new tattoo.”

“Sounds good,” he grins, and he leans back against the dusty floor. It’s really dark in here, but there’s some light spilling in from the outside, the mix of the moon and street lights.

“Have you ever had to do that before?” Lance asks.

“Yeah,” Keith nods. “Only once or twice, though.”

“You’re pretty good at it,” he compliments, chuckling.

“All instinct.”

They grow quiet after that, and all Lance can think of is how he wants to be closer. He starts with fitting his hand into Keith’s, and Keith allows it. Then he lays down next to him, sides pressing close, and Keith allows that, too. He’s content with this for a while, and then he’s not.

“This seems like a good movie moment,” he starts.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Usually we’d be kissing by now if were in a movie, though.”

“Why aren’t we?”

Lance is a little stunned, but he doesn’t hesitate even a second.

“Because I was waiting for permission like a good date,” he says, and then he leans up on his arm, over Keith. “But I have it now?”

Keith just looks at him for a moment. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m gonna need a yes.”

He laughs softly. “Yes.”

He grins all the way until their mouths touch, until Keith’s lips part softly against his and he feels breath on him. He tastes like their dessert, like chocolate and strawberries, and Lance feels a little like he’s dying with the way his heart is beating. Fast, then slow, then fast, and Keith’s fingers come up to card through his short hair. Nails scratch softly against his scalp and he sighs softly, running his free hand down Keith’s chest.

They kiss softly for a while, experimentally almost, testing the waters, and when they part Lance laughs and buries his face in Keith’s collar.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, hand petting the nape of Lance’s neck.

“I’m stupidly happy,” Lance returns, smiling into his date’s red jacket.

Keith laughs as well, hand still moving idly against him, and then they grow quiet for a moment. “You asked me earlier…about the party thing.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“Well, no,” he concedes. “But I want to. Shiro’s not my biological brother. His parents adopted me when I was sixteen.”

Lance makes a soft noise of sympathy. He doesn’t really know what to say. He’s always had a very happy home life, and he can’t really empathize with that. It must have been a difficult thing. “How long do you think we’ll be waiting here?”

Keith seems to let out a relieved breath, maybe on account of the fact that he doesn’t have to explain anything more. It’ll come later, Lance thinks. Hopefully there’s a later. “Maybe an hour or two.”

“Well I still have loads of adrenaline going on. Wanna make out some more?”

Keith laughs and drags him up for a kiss again.

* * *

 After Keith has called and reported his bike as stolen they leave, with Lance feeling sufficiently blissed out. They sneak slowly back to where they came from, watching closely for the cop, but he’s nowhere to be found. They shine the light on the art once more before taking a couple of pictures and running off. It’s a long walk back to the restaurant, so Lance calls Hunk up and has him come get them. On the way back to Lance’s car they explain to him what happened and he titters away, worried.

“Lance, we can’t afford to have our lease agreement voided.”

“It’ll be fine,” he insists. “They don’t even know we were there. For all they know, we were all at the parlor and Keith was getting a new tattoo.”

Hunk is not satisfied by this, but Lance essentially ignores him, curled up in the back seat with Keith, still a little revved up from everything. After they get dropped off at the car Lance drives them to the parlor, and there Keith tells him that he trusts him, that he can give him any tattoo he wants. Hunk and Pidge warn him that this is a huge mistake, but Keith just looks right into Lance’s eyes, repeats that he has complete trust in Lance, and Lance can do nothing but concede. He tattoos a crescent moon on the inside of his wrist, the one that doesn’t also sport a red lion a couple of inches above it. Hunk and Pidge are mildly impressed with him, but Lance wouldn’t tattoo something ridiculous on Keith anyway. He’d only do that to people he hates. He can think of one or two.

At the end of the night, Lance drives Keith back home, and the other man idly states that he’s gotten three times as many tattoos in the last three weeks as he had his entire life prior. Lance laughs and tells him to just wait – dating a tattoo artist means mostly free tattoos, and they can get addicting. Especially for someone like Keith, who seems to have a very high pain tolerance.

Keith invites him in, even though it’s beyond late, and Shiro and Allura are in the living room, cuddled up and watching some movie. Shiro just waves at Keith as they pass, and Allura grins madly. Keith ignores her, but waves back at his brother.

When they get to his room, Keith makes Lance show him all of his tattoos, every one, and Lance laughs as he explains the elephant on his back and the cartoon character on the inside of his upper arm. Keith kisses the series of triangles along his collarbone, and flicks the tattoo cover up from something he got with Nyma. Then they just lay together, on top of Keith’s red and black comforter, and Lance teases him about the posters he’s got around his room that must be from when he was a teenager. Keith punches him when he assumes, correctly, that Keith was totally an emo kid.

They fall asleep like that, squeezed together on Keith’s twin mattress, and he’s woken up in the morning by a cheery Allura, insisting that they come and have breakfast. Blearily he awakens and Allura leaves the room as Lance nips Keith’s ear to wake him up as well.

The police come later to take a statement about his stolen bike, to explain to them about the fact that it was found at the scene of a crime, and Lance thinks they both do a damn good job of lying through their teeth.

Allura and Shiro are not as convinced as the police are, and are also not happy in the least, so Keith comes clean about it all. They definitely look like disappointed parents, but they also swear not to say anything about it to the police.

Lance leaves when it’s time for work and kisses Keith softly once before skipping out of the house and making his way to the parlor.

All things considered, things could not be better.

* * *

 After the run-in with the police, neither of them do anything risky for a while. Lance itches to get back out there, to try again, but Keith insists that they need to lay low, and Lance understands. “It’s not worth jail time,” Keith said. It’s not worth losing his business either.

Still, it’s not like they stop completely.

“You have a steady hand,” Keith compliments from next to him. Lance looks up from the stencil he’s making and grins.

“I’m a tattoo artist. I make my living off a steady hand.”

He pushes the x-acto knife down again, pressing hard and dragging, cutting out the first letter of the artistic rendering of his name. They still practice in Keith’s garage, Lance slowly learning the steps, the techniques, and he loves it. He almost wants to let Pidge tattoo a piece of street art on him, but he decides he wants to think about it more first. If there’s anything he’s learned, it’s that picking tattoos willy-nilly is never a good idea. He’s already regretted a couple, he doesn’t want to regret any others.

They start to spend a lot more time together, spending evenings having take-out by the lake in the nearby park, or with Keith sitting the in parlor, sketching out ideas for him. Lance enjoys it, and Hunk, Pidge, and Keith make fast friends as well – usually ganging up on him for whatever reason. Usually he can talk Hunk and Keith back to his side, and then they turn around and gang up on Pidge instead.

They fight, sometimes, but it rarely gets vicious. Mostly it’s about small things – Keith accusing Lance of pure stupidity and Lance bristling, arguing back; Lance accusing Keith of being emotionally unavailable at times and Keith getting offended and upset. That one usually ends in watery eyes.

For the most part, though, Lance calls it pretty much bliss. They lay together in the morning, skin to skin; have breakfast together; Lance teaches Keith how to tattoo and lets him practice on synthetic skin. When he’s good enough, Lance lets him tattoo a little semicolon on the side of his index finger. He loves it, stares at it at night sometimes and smiles.

After about two months, Keith thinks it’s safe again and Lance practically drags him out to the Concrete Jungle. Spaceman and Spacegirl are gone, covered up in tan paint, so they just draw them again. This time Lance is better, paints Spacegirl with a rifle, shooting at a purple alien. Keith paints Spaceman pretty much cleaving one in half.

Afterwards they laugh and laugh, and Keith sprays a semicolon between the two space people. “Like two incomplete sentences leaning on each other to create a whole one,” he says, and Lance kisses him.

Lance kisses him again, and again, and then tells him that he loves him, and Keith smiles and says it back.

Eight months later, he gets a blue lion tattooed on the inside of his arm.

**Author's Note:**

> Give me like fifty tattoos I need them. I also have a picture of tattoo artist Lance on my tumblr if you wanna check it out. It's @ alteanengines.tumblr.com. You should come and talk to me about all of the headcanons I have about this AU. There's a lot.


End file.
